Polydamas very properly now advises the chivalry of Troy to dismount and fight on foot (_πρυλέες_) in dense columns, while their chariots are held stationary by their squires. Hector approves, and the dismounted Trojans form five columns of attack on a fortified position.[6] The Achaeans, scattered and disheartened, are mainly led and helped by the two Aiantes, but Poseidon rallies five or six young heroes of Boeotia, Aetolia, Crete, and Pylos.[7] They are confessedly both wearied and demoralised by the success of Hector in breaking down the gate.[8] They are actually weeping! But now, encouraged by the god, they form a "schiltrom," a close clump of spears advanced and levelled, underlying and overlying each other.[9] (The spears of defenders and assailants, at the battle of Langside (1568), were so closely interlocked, that discharged pistols and daggers thrown by the combatants lay on them!) Shield touches shield, the plumes of the helmets meet.[10] As was natural, Hector's column was arrested by the "dark impenetrable wood" of Achaean spears,[11] and now the poet makes Poseidon, who has lost a grandson (xiii. 207) in the fight, stir up Idomeneus, who is at a distance from Hector's point of attack, and we have the day of valour, and the success of the Cretan prince, on the left of the Achaean fortified position. The Boeotians there, with the Athenians and "Ionian tunic-trailers," are hard pressed, but the Aiantes make a stout resistance, and the arrows of the Locrians are showered on Hector's column.[12] Polydamas advises Hector to retreat, but he hurries off and brings up reinforcements in good order. He then tries again and again to break through the schiltrom of the Achaean dismounted men-at-arms, and the two forces clash with cries of onset.[13] Here we have a renewal of the steady conflict of men duly marshalled. Hector, however, is put out of action, sore smitten by a boulder from the hand of Aias; the Trojans give ground, are pursued, and fall back, till when Hector revives, Aias and the princes who joined him at the command of Poseidon, form a firm line of resistance.[14] Again there is a dogged contest of marshalled forces, till Apollo causes a panic among the Achaeans, and their line is broken. "Then man fell upon man _when the close fight was scattered_,"[15] and we have a new set of individual valiances, among the bravest; but the Achaean host is flying in disorderly rout, "hither and thither in terror," through the ditch and within the wall.